Mizzou women’s basketball routs Truman State in exhibition action
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
The Mizzou women's basketball team put up 100 points in the final preseason tuneup before the regular season begins, on Tuesday night, as the Tigers took down Truman State 112-62 in exhibition action.
You can watch the full postgame press conference with head coach Robin Pingeton, guard Grace Slaughter and guard Nyah Wilson in the video player below.
The 50-point victory marks MU's largest exhibition win since Nov. of 2021 when Pingeton and company routed Southwest Baptist. In addition, the team's 60 points at halftime marks the most in any exhibition game of the Pingeton era at Mizzou.
Mizzou's massive scoring effort was led by two of the team's biggest returning pieces: guards Grace Slaughter and Ashton Judd.
Slaughter, a sophomore, scored the team-high 17 points in the exhibition win, with 13 of those points coming in the first half. The Grain Valley native actually scored all three of Mizzou's first buckets. She also added on four rebounds and an assist to the effort.
"She's she's a young lady that's in the gym a lot, puts in a lot of reps offensively," Coach P said. "I think her footwork is really elite. I mean, she's an elite offensive player and she can score in a lot of ways."
Judd, a junior, followed up Slaughter's effort with a 16-point outing of her own. Judd finished just one rebound short of a double-double, as she had eight total on the night.
"I though Judd really did a great job of taking good shots," Pingeton said. "I thought she played like an upperclassman tonight. I'm really proud of her."
Forward Angelique Ngalakulondi and guard Averi Kroenke both made their returns from injury, on Tuesday, as well. Ngalakulondi made her presence known, going a perfect 6-for-6 with 13 points and also recording five rebounds and a pair of blocks.
Kroenke was actually the player that put the Tigers over the 100-point threshold. A three-pointer in the fourth quarter put them within one and then, just seconds later, she came right back down the court for a lay-in to give MU a 101-62 lead.
Defense and rebounding were a massive area of emphasis for Coach Pingeton and her team in the offseason. Altogether, the Tigers forced 22 turnovers with 11 steals. However, Pingeton still wants to see more out of her team on that end.
"I mean not not satisfied. You know, I think there's there was stretches that I thought was really good and probably normal for this time of the year," she said. "It was really good, I thought, from a rebounding standpoint. We, maybe, fell back on trying to out-jump instead of really being disciplined and widing out and getting a body and being fundamentally sound. Tonight it didn't hurt us, but that's going to be a point of emphasis in practice, is watching some film and understand the importance of getting a body, defensively."
Up next - Mizzou will tip off the regular season on Monday, Nov. 4 with a road trip up to Vermont. Game time is set for 5 p.m. CT.
